Congressional District 12, Carolyn Maloney vs. Chris Wight

U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney

In this race for Congress, our endorsement goes to Democratic incumbent and prolific legislator U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney. Maloney has consistently delivered federal funding and services to her district, championing the Second Avenue Subway and other capital projects, working hard on the 9/11 Zadroga bill to grant healthcare to those affected by the terrorist attacks, and pushing against the Republican onslaught on women’s rights at the national level. While her Republican opponent Christ Wight has said that he is pro-choice, he doesn’t have a platform for promoting continued access to abortion and reproductive healthcare. Wight also toes the Republican line on cutting taxes and said that he would focus more on reducing corporate taxes than bringing federal dollars into the state and the district, which we believe would hurt, not help, the Upper East Side.

Senate District 28, Liz Krueger vs. David Garland

Sen. Liz Krueger

David Garland, a Republican and Independence Party candidate, presented a strong campaign with well-developed ideas for the Upper East Side. Garland, who speaks six languages and works at a management consultant for Fortune 500 companies, is a fiscal conservative, advocating for better use of tax incentives at the state level as well as reducing taxes for small businesses and corporations to keep them in New York. He also is a social libertarian, supporting gay marriage and reproductive and abortion rights. He is running, however, against a very strong opponent in State Senator Liz Krueger, and our endorsement goes to her in this race. Krueger has been a consistent champion of women’s rights as well as a powerful force in the Senate, as she serves as the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee and could become the chair if her party takes the majority. She consistently provides excellent constituent services while diving into the weeds of budgets and complicated legislative issues, like the Reproductive Health Act that would move the state’s reproductive health laws from the penal to the civil code. While we support Sen. Krueger in this race, we hope to see David Garland continue in politics and would have considered endorsing him against a weaker Democratic candidate.

Senate District 31, Adriano Espaillat vs. Martin Chicon

We are declining to endorse either candidate in this race. While Republican Martin Chicon argued that he would be able to better serve the district as part of the (currently) majority party in the Senate and said that he would bring development and transit improvements to the district, we were not completely convinced that he would be the best representative for the Upper West Side’s heavily Democratic and liberal constituency. We are unable to endorse his opponent, incumbent Sen. Adriano Espaillat, however, since he did not make himself available for an endorsement interview.

Assembly District 76, Micah Kellner vs. Mike Zumbluskas

Assembly Member Micah Kellner

Democratic incumbent Micah Kellner presented a compelling case for promoting his reelection, specifically with an eye toward his advocacy on behalf of creating a new middle school in the district and his work against the East 91st Street Marine Transfer Station. He also is supportive of raising the minimum wage as well as creating an angel investor tax credit, similar to what other states have implemented successfully, to keep tech innovators in New York. He is a strong opponent of hydrofracking in the state and said that he will continue to push to prevent or restrict it. His opponent, Mike Zumbluskas, is an Independent candidate running on the Republican line, and while he presented some ideas similar to Kellner, his emphasis on reducing taxes and challenging the Democratic majority in the Assembly were not strong enough reasons for voters to choose him. Despite the widely circulated rumor that he will be running for city council in 2013 (which he would neither confirm nor deny), we endorse Kellner in this race.

Assembly District 73, Dan Quart vs. David Casavis 

Assembly Member Dan Quart

In this race, we endorse the freshman incumbent Assemblyman Dan Quart. After winning the seat just over a year ago in a special election, Quart is running for a full term with a focus on improving the state and city’s energy policies and improving access to quality education on the Upper East Side. While we wish that Quart had presented a slightly stronger case for voters to return him to Albany, we also recognize that he’s only had a year in the job and we look forward to seeing what he can do if he wins reelection and had a full term to develop some of his positions and advance his ideas, especially in promoting green energy. His Republican opponent, David Casavis, who ran for Manhattan Borough President against Scott Stringer in 2009, presented little in the way of specific plans to help his district and almost no indication of the type of legislation he would pass, aside from opposing Democrats.

Assembly District 65, Sheldon Silver vs. Wave Chan 

Assembly Speaker Sheldon SIlver

While we wish that there were a stronger challenger running against all-powerful Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, our endorsement in this race still goes to him. Especially in light of his botched handling of the Vito Lopez sexual harassment scandal, many argue that Silver’s iron-clad hold over the Assembly could use a shake-up, but the Tea Party Republican candidate Wave Chan isn’t the person to do that. Silver remains popular in his district and does advocate for his constituents’ needs, while Chan could only present vague ideas about severely cutting corporate taxes and encouraging new housing development without clear plans as to how he would specifically help the Lower East Side. He also would be a poor fit for a district with an active LGBT population, as he does not support gay marriage, only civil unions.

“To legislate and to effect meaningful change for citizens, I think it’s Carolyn Maloney that’s at the disadvantage,” Wight said. “Going to Washington as a representative of the people and having experience working in the private sector is much more important than having been isolated and in Congress.”

Wight is the type of Republican who might stand a chance with Manhattan voters—that is, fiscally conservative but socially liberal. While he disdains Maloney’s heavy involvement fighting what he sees as a disingenuously labeled “War on Women,” he said that he believes that the government shouldn’t get in the way of a woman’s right to chose, an opinion that aligns with his political philosophy of getting government out of the way.

“Health care decisions should be between doctors and patients,” he said. “There shouldn’t be a menu of two or three acceptable options that are mandated by the government.”

Wight also wants to streamline regulations and reduce burdens on small businesses.

“We need to create incentives for people to do business, for small businesses to grow and hire more workers,” Wight said. “One thing we have to focus on is tax relief for small businesses, to give them more free capital to invest and hire more workers.”

He supports cutting the corporate tax rate in order to stimulate growth, a move that he said will increase overall tax revenues as more businesses open. He is also in favor of a simplified, flatter tax structure and closing the gap of unpaid taxes owed to the government by overhauling the tax code.

Wight aims to make the health care system cheaper and more accessible through tort reform, protecting doctors and hospitals from frivolous lawsuits and incentivizing doctors to make better, more cost-effective decisions on patient care.

“I believe patients need to have a more vested interest in how much they’re paying for health care, for procedures. They need to be aware of how much things cost and they need to have a vested interest in, for example, not over-testing,” Wight said.

Originally from Ohio, Wight graduated from Ohio State University with a degree in business administration and went straight into the banking world. He worked at Goldman Sachs as an analyst studying equity markets for four years, then moved to Deutsche Bank for five years to manage an operations team. He currently works for JP Morgan and touts his experience in the private sector as vital to serving in Congress.

“I think we need more people coming from the private sector who understand how our financial systems works, who understand business and who understand how to create jobs and economic growth; we need more experts in Congress,” Wight said.

Wight is aware of his opponent’s popularity, but thinks Upper East Siders will be open to change. He criticizes Maloney for fixing every problem with a new piece of legislation and says that what the district and the country need is fewer complicated laws, not more of them. He also wants to tone down the partisan rhetoric he feels is overwhelming Congress right now, contributing to the distrust many Americans have for the government.

“I consider myself more of a moderate and a centrist. I think too many people get tied up in labels of Democrat or Republican and they make it partisan,” Wight said. “I think this election is not really about being a Republican or a Democrat, it’s about solutions and ideas and economic growth and job creation.”